


Muscle Memory

by Valentined



Series: Pieces of Valentine [4]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen, Immortality is Awful, Not Pairing Centric - Freeform, Post-Canon, Post-Post-Post-Canon, but if you check the dates in that one, heed that warning guys, there's a pretty shitty ending to this one, this takes place before Twenty-Seven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-19 12:36:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20657363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valentined/pseuds/Valentined
Summary: Toward the end, Vincent took up drawing. At the end, Yuffie wants to know why.





	Muscle Memory

Toward the end, Vincent took up drawing. It wasn’t the first time—he’d been told in his youth that he had a gift for the use of charcoal and never bothered to pursue it—but it was something distinctly new for everyone who knew him. There was no doubt of his ability, but his method…left something to be desired.

Everyone received a portrait. Duplicated by hand over and over, until there were enough for everyone to have pictures of themselves and everyone else, regardless of how close or distant they were. But even then he kept going, repeating the same set of images over and over and over again until Cid joked he was training himself to draw them all in his sleep. Copies were given to children, grandchildren, great grandchildren.

They worried, of course. Vincent just said it was something he had to do, and kept drawing.

One day far past the era of the Crisis, Vincent sat alone in his room in Wutai, sketchbook in hand, fingers of his right hand smeared black and white with the tools of his art. He kept his glowing eyes on the page, sketching out every detail from memory—the portrait he drew now only tangentially resembled the worn, tired woman who still served as matriarch of this still-proud family.

He changed the page and pulled a fresh curve of black across the page, starting again, starting someone new—someone very, very old.

The door slid open and then shut again. Bare feet quiet on the tatami floor, everything remained quiet save for the constant scratch of Vincent’s work.

“You shouldn’t be out of bed,” he said, not looking up. He reached up to tuck a lock of hair behind his ear and left a streak of charcoal on his cheek.

“Why do you do it?” Yuffie asked, her voice tired, old, but no less _present_ than it had ever been.

“It’s something I have to do,” he replied.

Yuffie padded closer, the unsteadiness of her gait making the pain in her joints clear. “Vincent,” she said, standing at his back. “Tell me. Why do you do it?”

He was quiet, but his hand stopped its journey back and forth over the paper in his hand. The Lady of Wutai wondered for a moment if she’d pushed too hard. Vincent was better, certainly, but there was still a distinct air of fragility about him, an emotional instability. A hurt that no one could see, much less help to heal.

A wound ripped open too many times to ever close.

Yuffie took a shaky breath. “There are just the four of us now,” she said. Four, out of everyone. Even the Turks were gone, as people and as an entity. The ShinRa name disappeared with the marriage of Rufus’ daughter and the once proud company faded into history once and for all, taking artifacts like Vincent’s home department with it. Of the dozens of people that had been involved, all the names everyone knew from Avalanche out into the WRO and beyond, four alone remained.

Yuffie, Cloud, Nanaki.

Vincent.

They worried, of course, because they knew that in the end there would just be that one left, and that he would be _forced_ to keep going. The man who had once been removed from time, now didn’t dare sleep for fear of missing the passing of one of his only remaining friends.

“Vincent, please. There are only four of us left. It’s been so long…” She stood close behind him, but kept her hands tucked in her sleeves where it was warm. “One of us deserves to know. Why?”

He held his silence for a long moment more. Long enough that Yuffie thought he’d just chosen to ignore her entirely. But he hadn’t resumed drawing.

“I’m…starting to forget,” he said at last, his deep voice quiet, halting. “I’m already starting to forget. Veld went first—because he went first, I suppose.” He looked down at the drawing in his hand. “I woke up one morning and couldn’t remember how he liked his coffee. And I realized…I had forgotten so many other things. About everyone.”

He closed his eyes, his jaw tightening.

“So I have to do this. I have to keep doing this, because this way even if my mind can’t remember your faces—” He took a breath, and it shook. His shoulders trembled. His voice came out thick, strained. “Even if my mind doesn’t remember your faces, maybe my hands will. This way, maybe I won’t…lose everyone.”

Vincent held his head low and shook. The faint choking, gasping sounds he made were so unfamiliar, so unlike him. Vincent Valentine didn’t cry. Not where anyone could ever see it, anyway.

“This way, after you’re all gone, maybe I won’t forget that I wasn’t always alone.”

Yuffie wrapped her thin, old arms around his shoulders and held on tight.

“We’re all with you, Vincent,” she breathed. “No matter what, we’re with you. Even if you can’t see us, even if you forget, we’re here.” She reached down to touch the sketchbook laying in Vincent’s lap, and he caught her hand halfway and just held on.

She felt, for a moment, that if he held on long enough, hard enough, maybe she could stay here with him. Maybe she could do what the others hadn’t, maybe she could keep company, keep him safe.

But it was only for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t want to forget.”

She leaned her cheek against his head, breathing into his hair. “Nothing lasts forever, Vincent. Not memories, not drawings. Not you.” She held him a little tighter, and her own voice had a tremor in it when she spoke. “I don’t believe the gods will make you keep going. They can’t, not to you. You’ve done too much good to be kept here.”

Vincent choked. She squeezed his hand.

“Shh. It’s all right. I know it’s hard, I know it’s such a long time—but you’re right. You’re doing the right thing.” She let go and reached down to touch the drawing, barely smearing the black line of Reeve’s jaw. He’d been dead for forty years.

“We’re all here,” she whispered. “Breathing in your hands.”


End file.
